At least 151,000 more Hampton Roads residents voted than in the midterms four years ago, according to state and local data.

More than 464,000 people in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News and Hampton cast ballots on Tuesday to choose their next senator and congressional and local representatives. Data from Suffolk were not available. The numbers are preliminary until votes are certified in coming weeks, and most do not include provisional ballots.

That's up from about 313,000 people in those cities who voted in 2014, midway through President Barack Obama's second term. All saw turnouts this year of more than half of registered voters except Newport News, which came out at 46.6 percent.

Virginia Beach saw the biggest jump, from 37 percent turnout in 2014 to more than 54 percent this week. Hampton's increase was close behind with a jump of 16 points to almost 53 percent. Norfolk and Portsmouth saw turnouts around 52 percent, up from under 40 in 2014, and Chesapeake's jumped 14 points to a regional high of 56.4 percent.

Statewide, an estimated 60 percent of registered voters in Virginia cast ballots Tuesday, said Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Wason Center of Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. If that holds true, it would mark a 7 percent increase from the commonwealth’s last high-water mark for midterm turnout in 2006, a spike driven in part by a backlash against President George W. Bush, Bitecofer said.

"This is a marked improvement over last year and big in terms of the historical timeline," Bitecofer said.

Norfolk

2018: 67,667 ballots cast, 51.95 percent of registered voters

2016: 83,692 ballots cast, 70.62 percent of registered voters

2014: 42,713 ballots cast, 36.88 percent of registered voters

Chesapeake

2018: 90,858 ballots cast, 56.4 percent of registered voters

2016: 138,244 ballots cast, 82.32 percent of registered voters

2014: 63,229 ballots cast, 42.34 percent of registered voters

Portsmouth

2018: 33,411 ballots cast, 52.34 percent of registered voters

2016: 43,475 ballots cast, 66.41 percent of registered voters

2014: 24,643 ballots cast, 39.64 percent of registered voters

Virginia Beach

2018: 167,975 ballots cast, 54.63 percent of registered voters

2016: 204,324 ballots cast, 66 percent of registered voters

2014: 107,393 ballots cast, 37 percent of registered voters

Hampton

2018: 50,381 ballots cast, 52.7 percent of registered voters

2016: 62,555 ballots cast, 65.66 percent of registered voters

2014: 35,401 ballots cast, 36.4 percent of registered voters

Newport News

2018: 55,716 ballots cast, 46.61 percent of registered voters

2016: 82,084 ballots cast, 45.4 percent of registered voters

2014: 40,032 ballots cast, 32.5 percent of registered voters

Voters responded to President Donald Trump in what Bitecofer characterized as "negative partisanship."

What exactly does that mean?

Bitecofer explained it this way in a CNU blog post: "Out-of-power partisans, in this case Democrats, vote because fear motivates, especially fear that comes from seeing the opposition party enact the wrong policies and stack federal courts with the wrong judges."

This year that translated into putting a check on Trump. A motivated Democratic party helped flip several seats in the House.

"This is the most salient midterm we’ve had in decades," Bitecofer said.

The Virginia Public Access Project reports that voter turnout reached more than 58 percent across the commonwealth – roughly 3.3 million people – though the Virginia Department of Elections does not track overall turnout until votes are certified in coming weeks. That's up by roughly 17 points since 2014.

Virginians still fell short compared to presidential elections. About 148,000 fewer people in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Newport News and Hampton voted Tuesday than in the 2016 contest.

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Gordon Rago is a general assignment reporter on the Pilot's digital enterprise team. Prior to Virginia, Gordon was a reporter at the York (Pa.) Daily Record for four years. He started his journalism career in north Idaho.

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gordon.rago@pilotonline.com

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